to think this is f*cked up?

[DHsdilemma]

NC as my other username is for me personally.

DH has gone LC (NC really) with his mum and sister. It came to a head as he has always said he was treated differently.

Tonight we were talking and the topic came up about one time he thinks this really exemplifies being treated differently but I’ve been left thinking wtf?!

So the story:

When DH was about 13 circa 2004, he went on holiday with his older sister (1 year older), his younger brother (2 years younger), his mum and two aunts. They rented a small 3 seater hatchback to travel around Spain and bordering countries.

When they got the car it obviously couldn’t fit everyone in, so the decision was made that DH would have to get in the boot. They removed the parcel shelf so he could see out the back window but it was very much a boot. The reason was his sister was a girl and his brother was the “baby” and got car sick.

They used this car to travel hours - they went to Gibraltar and Morocco (the port) as well as around Spain in general. Whenever they hit border security they told DH to duck.

I asked DH whether he maybe was a kid who thought the boot was exciting. But apparently he vividly remembers being very angry and upset about being put in the boot (especially when they put the parcel shelf back to conceal him from security). He remembers mostly that he was so upset and disorientated from the experience that the drum souvenir he bought he dropped as he was dizzy and he was distraught about it.

Now I think this is fucked up. Mainly from a safety perspective and know my parents would have just rented a bigger car in the same scenario. He has brought it up to his mum who dismissed it as a bit of a joke and family tale.

Is this normal / funny? Or is this just terrible parenting?

YABU: it is just something that needed to be done, no one was hurt and it’s fine
YANBU: what the fuck

I have a really messed up family and was the norm to pack as many people as possible in a car. The bought Datsuns I think it was for this purpose to have kids in the very back looking at cars behind up.
Luggage was piled into any free space possible and of course the trusty roof rack.
Even after we were rear ended on the motorway and witnessing the horrors of that due to no seat belts etc, the fuckers still continued.
Years later the fuckers tried gaslighting us that none of us were in that bit of the car. However there was a couple of pictures showing their recklessness, never mind hospital records.
Dopey adult lack of responsibility back in the 70/80's never mind in the 2000's.

I agree with others that it was unsafe and unkind. Yes, in the 70s kids were travelling in seriously overcrowded cars but there were far fewer cars in the road, they were less powerful and smaller. All of that said, it was still dangerous even then.

Definitely not right in 2004. I had 2 small children by then and there is no way they would have gone in the boot, or a footwell like someone else said. They had carseats and had to be properly strapped in to them, same as today.
Even in the 1970s that would have been mad.

This was pretty standard where I grew up a few years before that but only for short journeys. For instance, an extra child on the way back from brownies would squeeze in or go in the boot. Don't remember it ever being for anything more than a couple of miles in a town though and we absolutely took turns.

In 2004?! That's bloody awful and dangerous. My parents had a nasty road accident in the late 60's ( way before I born - luckily no one seriously injured), and from that time, my Dad had seatbelts put in on the back and front seats of all the cars they had, and insisted people wear them. They wouldn't even start the car unless every passenger travelling with them in the car had put their seatbelts on. I'm surprised that it was as late as 1991 in UK, when seat belts on the rear seats of car became compulsory.

Happened all the time when I was a kid in the 1980s. Not ideal and I’d be shocked to see anyone do it now but really wouldn’t be something I’d still be obsessing about 15 years after it happened.

Honestly to me it isn't a big deal, not great but not massively unusual but I come from an abusive home so my reality is probably slightly skewed.

Whether or not the action itself was right, wrong or in between is actually completely irrelevant. What does matter is how it made him feel and how it was or wasn't dealt with.

There isn't a league table of trauma and nor should there be. My guess is that there may have been more than this one incident that has cumulatively impacted him.

If this is affecting his day to day quality of life then please help him to get help. I didn't have a clue how screwed up my childhood was until a few years ago, I'd hate for him to waste the number of years I have. I wish him and you all the very best.

It doesn't really matter what other people think about the ins and outs of the scenario the fact it caused your DH trauma and upset is enough to class it as poor parenting. Combined with the mother's subsequent minimising and dismissal of your DHs feelings about it confirms a lack of empathy and compassion.

As children roughly 1981-1986 we were put in the back of a small van, sat on a metal floor, shelf. no seatbelts....never happy with it tbh.
2004...christ no!

we had an estate car that had the collapsable jump seats in the boot at some point in the 80s/early 90s, but even then, they had SEAT BELTS.

Putting a 13yo in the boot, to the point if even putting the parcel shelf over them and enclosing them in, in 2004 was not normal, and absolutely 100% illegal.

Can't believe people are justifying it.

We going to use the same reasoning to justify babies not being in car seats because they weren't a thing back then?

Norm when i was a child so 70s Definitely not in 2004

I was 10 in 2004 and this sort of thing still happening.

Will comment that the selection process for the boot was pretty messed up too. What does gender or such small age gaps between the children have anything to do with it? I'm guessing DH was the family scapegoat. Had similar in my messed up family ie my brother was a "boy", my sister "too young" therefore it was my job to do the housework and cooking for the family when my DM went back to work.

My oldest was 9 in 2004, it wasn't normal to put kids in the boot back then!

I was 18 in 2004 and one of a very large family and my parents would never have done this. He could have been killed. 2004 is not the 80s! Shocking behaviour.

Had this been parenting of the 1980s = fairly routine
But I'm shocked that this happened in 2004

in the 70s and 80s this was par for the course, certainly on short journeys. My friend's mum once gave 8 or 9 of us a lift back from secondary school in her Cavalier, there were kids on laps, in the footwell and the boot.

However this was short journeys only, and very much of the time.. when I was 5 I used to sit on my dads lap and 'drive' (steer) our car .

I don't know anyone even in those times though that would have done such a long journey with their child in the boot. And certainly by 2004 this really would be outside any kind of norm - we went to a wedding around that time and were asked to give 2 adults a lift from the church to reception - there was only 1 spare seat in our car so the other adult went in the boot (I wasn't happy about this but he and exP overruled me). 20 years earlier it would definitely have been expected to put a child in the boot instead.

Sorry for your DP, it sounds like an awful experience and must really have rammed it home how his siblings were favoured ahead of him.

2004 and using the boot to fit a child in was it normal at all. As others have said, in 1970 yes but not early 2000.

IF it had been the 1970, I don’t think anyone would have bat an eye lid at him always being in the boot. Reasons given are but I can see how it would have happened.

The fact it was NOT the 1970s means that I can totally understand why he didn’t take it well. And felt he was treated differently. I’m surprised they didn’t get caught at some point. And the parens clearly KNEW they were in wrong (see the border stuff).
I mean 2004 there was a strong message about care seat, safety, seat belts etc… they were basically saying that all that safety stuff was unnecessary for him. That the fact he was in the least comfortable place in the car was ok (I imagine he also had the baggage’s with him etc…). That’s pretty bad tbh.

@Girlmumdogmumboymum

Sort of normal- shut parenting of its day. In 2004 we were still driving around in an old clapped out nova as a family, it was the boot or the footspace of the car for one of the four of us children.

I do understand why he's upset that it happened though, especially as it feels like a decision that's so far from the norm now.

I don't think that's normal for 2004 at all.

DH’s parents were wealthy (still are) - they absolutely could have afforded a bigger car - just to clarify. I don’t really get why they didn’t but no one has explained it. (All I can think is no other cars were available)

Travelled in the boot of a ford capri around France and Spain in the 80s and they are among my best childhood memories. However in 2004 it was probably very illegal

Agree with everyone else, this was not the norm in 2004 - my DS was born in 2001 and I can still recall being escorted out to the car park to ensure we had the proper sort of car seat.

No way was this acceptable, I understand your DH still feeling hurt and upset about this. I don't agree with PPs that if a larger, alternative car was not available then the children should have taken turns in sitting in the boot - I think his DM should have changed the holiday plans and either arranged to stay in one place, or in places which only required a short distance to travel to (in which case then rotating which child was in the boot would be an adequate solution). Hiding from border security was another foolish idea from your DH's Mother - what was she thinking?! Can you imagine what the guards would have thought had they found him? Kidnap? Child trafficking? Really terrible parenting.

I remember my DSis and cousin, who were both around 5 or 6 at the time, being very excited about hiding in the boot of my DM's (large Montego Estate) car to sneak into the Bath & West Show, so me, DM, DAunt and my other cousin could just pay for a family of 4 ticket - they were only in there for about 5 minutes though - and this was in around 1987!

I am here to explain the luggage issue because I didn’t think of that. My geography is also poor.

So - DH says these were all day trips, so minimal luggage. Every day he’d be made to get in the boot.

The driving started each day in Malaga. He said they went to Morocco by car (him in the boot) by driving 1.5 hours to the port then they parked and were foot passengers for the ferry. I believe they came back the same day.

I know this isn’t a wind up because he’s mentioned it for years and talked about it in front of his family (hence why I know they laugh about it). I’d assumed it was an estate car with back seats (I personally loved sitting in them but we had seat belts and still my parents didn’t love me doing it). But no - he said it was a hatchback with 3 doors (similar to a Kia Picanto apparently but I don’t know what they are like)

His parents have done far more blatant displays of favouritism which has been quite dark and I’ve realised how bad he had it (always thought maybe he just had middle child syndrome) but this just really shocked me from a parenting perspective.

I'm one of 5 and we used to take my gran with us on holiday, so 8 in a car. Me and my db would sit in the boot (hatchback) of a Volvo. We were probably 12 and 10. Totally illegal now but this was probably late 90's 😭